


schumann resonances

by neville



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Canonical Character Death, EVERYONE IS HURTING BUT THEY'RE ALL DOING THEIR BEST, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, IM PROUD AND WANT THE BEST FOR THEM, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Recovery, Smart Hulk (Marvel), bruce and thor are both fucked up, bruce is really really gay for thor, but they're helping each other, everyone is trying, everything that happened in canon happened except i ignore steve's ending, supportive boyfriends, they're supporting each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 03:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18885835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neville/pseuds/neville
Summary: Bruce Banner has made more mistakes than he could even count in the past five years. Now that everything is over, he's determined to rectify them. Thor understands that pain, and stays with him.





	schumann resonances

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is basically me airing my grievances with endgame, and i'm NOT sorry. i love bruce and thor and they! deserve! better! aka each other, and being in love, and that sort of stuff
> 
> i'm an arts student who understands absolutely zero science, but here's simple english wikipedia's definition of a schumann resonance, for the curious: 
> 
> "a schumann resonance is a resonant frequency of a set of several extremely low frequency (ELF) oscillations of the earth's electromagnetic field between the ground and reflective regions of the ionosphere, triggered by lightning. it is also proposed to be foundational to human consciousness, possibly related to the set of human brain waves."
> 
> this is my actual baby, so i really hope you guys enjoy this!

__ oh, man. i can’t remember anything without you.  
_ …  
_ __ i wish i’d stayed

-eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

 

Bruce would fight to be the person to pick up Thor, to see him at the door of the rehabilitation centre and put his arms around him because so much of this is Bruce’s fault, but in the end, he lets Steve go. Bruce is too big to drive, and isn’t going to make Thor ride home on public transport, and so he waits. He’s put together Thor’s room already, a combination of his old things and some new clothes, books, and tech. Nothing fancy, but he has a television and a tablet. Bruce frames and hangs up some prints, too, sick of the bare walls. Steve lays Stormbreaker by Thor’s bed, waiting for him. 

Sending Thor off had been an almost immediate decision after the battle; no sooner had the dust settled from the remnants of the New Avengers Facility before Happy was taking him away to an undisclosed rehabilitation centre in another state. Though it had partially been Bruce’s decision to seek professional help for Thor’s five years’ worth of self-loathing and living in personal indigence, Happy refused to tell him - or anybody else, for that matter - where Thor was going. Bruce knew  _ why _ ; of all people, he was the most likely to fuck something up with Thor’s treatment in a moment of weakness. Tony wasn’t here to unashamedly point out that Bruce was rather attached to Thor, but it didn’t mean that no-one else knew. 

Bruce had found it difficult enough refurnishing and moving back into Avengers Tower, but to do it without Thor and his jokes and light-heartedness had just made the whole thing… emptier. Steve had insisted that they stay together in the aftermath and support each other; that they wouldn’t make the mistake of the past five years and let each other suffer alone. He was right, of course, and Bruce hadn’t found it difficult to convince most of the remaining Avengers to stay. Clint and Scott were at home with their families, and the Guardians of the Galaxy, never much for staying in one place too long, had disappeared back into space. So had Carol Danvers, but Bruce still has a channel open for her, and occasionally hears from her, often with less hair than she’d had the last time. She’d never particularly checked in on Avengers business, but she seemed concerned about the remnants of them. Bruce can’t blame her. He looks too tired, now, to be able to stop any sort of alien invasion. 

He spends most of Thor’s release day avoiding the other residents of the Tower. He eats breakfast early, and spends the morning sifting through his reports from Shuri; a few weeks ago, he had sent most of Tony Stark’s remaining technology and inventions to her to analyse. He smiles his way through the notably informal report, peppered here and there with the kind of scientific jargon she knows he understands. She mentions that she could probably make more, and could keep the remaining Avengers ticking over for a while, and as a postscript, adds that she’s pretty sure she could reverse his Hulk transformation. If he wanted to, of course. She’d need to see him, but she’s confident. 

He ignores it, and emails back that, if she has the time, most of the remaining Avengers are desperately in need of suits; and, of course, adds a compulsory  _ how is T’Challa? _

Bucky arrives in the doorway of the lab at lunchtime, taking Steve’s place as his pesterer. Bruce has told Steve plenty of times that he’s not Tony, and he eats lunch like a normal person (albeit usually at his desk), but Steve, rather sensibly, doesn’t listen to him. Bruce just can’t believe he’s sent  _ Bucky _ in his place. “It’s lunchtime,” Bucky says. “Sam got take-out. Are you coming?” 

Bruce sets aside his laptop and nods. “Yeah,” he says, standing up carefully to avoid knocking anything off the desk again. He does it almost every time. A pen rolls dangerously close to the edge of the table, but he ignores it, following Bucky up the stairs. “Is, uh, Peter back yet?” Peter had insisted on going out every day to do some of the whole  _ friendly neighbourhood Spiderman _ stuff, and Bruce had had plenty of words for that, but Steve had overruled him, and the word of Captain America definitely weighed more than a green idiot who technically now had three point five PhDs, if you did the maths. 

“He’s fine,” says Bucky. “Stopped a few petty crimes, as usual. Someone gave him some Girl Scout cookies for the trouble. He’s here because Sam told him there was pizza.”

“Did he bring any back?” 

Bucky smirks. “Good luck getting one. It’s all Samoas.” 

“Oh,  _ come on _ , that’s my favourite kind!” 

Save the obvious exceptions of Steve and Thor, it’s a full house in the kitchen for lunch: the pizza is probably behind it, but Bruce also suspects that it was to lure him out. Peter and his Aunt May, who have temporarily moved in for the sake of having extra pairs of eyes on Peter, are there, and Peter lets Bruce have a first nab at the cookies. Bruce eats extra portions now that he’s big - he eats like Thor, really - but he tries to temper himself, never take too much. He avoids eating other peoples’ food. Sam is opening up various pizza boxes, and Bruce goes straight in for the Hawaiian, since nobody else eats it, except Clint, and he’s not here. 

“Hey, Dr Banner,” Peter says, and Bruce immediately corrects him to “Bruce”, but apparently he’s on a wall of famous scientists in Peter’s high school and so he deserves the title. “How are you today?” 

Peter asks this every day, and Bruce wonders if he knows that nobody is ever going to offload their true feelings onto him, considering how much he’s been through. “I’m alright,” he says amiably. “How are you? Bucky said you got those cookies as a reward. What’d you do? Nothing dangerous, I hope.” 

“I found a lost dog,” Peter says, and the smile that creeps onto his face when he says that and takes a slice of cheese and tomato almost reminds Bruce of the way he had been before. Peter is sad a lot of the time now, and Bruce doesn’t really know what to do with it, because he feels exactly the same. They’ve both lost Tony. “You know, when I - before this, I wanted to do a real, proper mission instead of all that friendly neighbourhood Spiderman stuff. But now I just want to do that normal stuff. The real missions, they were all…” 

“Scary and life-threatening?” Peter nods. “Yeah, I get that. Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing wrong with keeping down to Earth. Not everything needs to be aliens, or threatening to destroy the planet. I mean, that’s what we have Captain Marvel for. I’m sure the people out there appreciate you helping them.” Bruce certainly never wants to be in any of these global missions; he just ends up in them, one way or another.

Peter is quiet for a moment, and Bruce hopes he’s said the right thing - he’s kind of been taking his cues from Steve lately, but he’s no Captain America himself. But Peter turns to him and smiles brightly. “Yeah, you’re right. Thank you, Dr Banner.” 

Bruce doesn’t bother to correct him this time. 

He makes an effort to socialise at lunch - Bucky even makes a joke about how Bruce is going to have to do the pep talks forever, and once he’s sure he’s eased the team’s concerns about his health, he heads back down to the lab. He doesn’t  _ really _ need to use it as much, but it’s quieter: people don’t really venture down to the lower levels. Besides which, Bruce had spent a good few days installing good speakers, and it’s a place where he can drown out his thoughts. Steve still spins records upstairs, but Bruce has finally transitioned from CDs to Spotify. 

Steve tells him he shouldn’t spend so much time down here, but Bruce isn’t really sure he can quite face the light of the above floors, or the thought of actually addressing anything just yet. 

He spends the afternoon in the corner of his lab, with his Brother sewing machine. Nobody exactly  _ makes _ Hulk-sized clothing, so most of it he does himself, whittling away the hours. Back at his house, he has a Singer he bought at a thrift store and did up, and he’s still adjusting to using a sewing machine he doesn’t have to fix every half hour. It’s harder, still, to do something as precise as sewing with Hulk-size hands. But it’s something to do that takes up enough time, and it doesn’t remind him of Tony, and at the end of the day, he usually has a new shirt or two. Maybe trousers, if he’s feeling optimistic. 

He doesn’t even know what time it is when he hears the noise of footsteps on the stairs, and glances up. It’s probably Bucky, reminding him to come up and eat dinner sometime. 

But it’s not Bucky: it’s Thor, with his hair washed and pulled back and his beard trimmed and a little of that life back in his eyes. Bruce’s stomach lurches as if he’s on a rollercoaster and a thousand words surge up only to die in his throat; instead, he gets up and lets Thor fling his arms up and around him. It’s strange, being taller than him. Not quite right. Because Bruce isn’t the bigger man, not really, and-

This whole Hulk thing is just running away from his problems because he doesn’t want to have to face them. 

“Good to see you,” Thor says cheerfully as they break apart. 

“Yeah, we missed you,” Bruce says earnestly, though when he says  _ we _ , he’s pretty sure he means  _ I _ . “You look really good. I’m glad you went.” He reaches over to his phone and turns the music down a few notches, trying to ignore the clear voice of Lindsay Jordan singing “ _ I know myself and I’ll never love anyone else; I won’t love anyone else _ ”. He’s pretty sure he’s too old now to be listening to teenagers singing about unrequited love, but this is the kind of thing on rotation in the indie playlists, and so what he usually listens to now that he doesn’t need the opera to calm him down.

“I feel much better,” Thor says, nodding along. “Though I don’t think the staff believed me about being the king of Asgard.” 

Bruce laughs. “I guess seeing isn’t always believing, huh?” He smiles up at Thor, unable to contain himself; if it’s not literally been ages, it certainly feels like it. The world has been spinning and Bruce has been on his own, which he knows is really his own fault, but… Steve didn’t exactly rescue him when he was stranded on an alien planet. He’s been through so much with Thor that nobody else really understands. Nat, maybe, but she’s… 

He tries not to ruminate on it. 

“Do you want to come up for a drink? Wanda has been showing me how to make all these non-alcoholic cocktails…” 

“Of course,” says Thor. “Do you have any food? I’m starved. I don’t think they understood Asgardian portions.” 

Bruce finds that Peter had saved him a few cookies, so he shares them with Thor and orders a copious amount of food from the nearby shawarma place, who probably know his voice by now. Not like Tony would ever order; it was always Bruce’s job, as he was about the only person who could gather what everyone wanted. He feels a twinge when he orders; he’s still a little on edge being back here, honestly, but he’s trying to get used to it. Reforming the space, or something; the redecorating has certainly helped, turning rooms around, spending hours in front of the IKEA catalogue. 

He impresses Thor with a citrus peach cooler that he makes with a certain aplomb, as Wanda had shown him, and they sit round the kitchen table together. Thor describes rehabilitation, talks about the people he was in with and what it was like; he’s frank about the difficulties, and honest about everything. Bruce, who usually lies his way through almost every conversation, tells Thor everything: that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, that he’s finding living here difficult, he doesn’t know how to help anybody, and he’s not sure he should be in charge but he is just because he knows he has sound enough mind to keep things ticking over. Thor tells him that he misses his father, and brother, and that he probably fucked up New Asgard and thinks he’s a disgrace to his citizens; Bruce tells him that he thinks he might be running away from his problems because they’re mounting and too much for him now and the only way to deal with them is to pretend they aren’t there. 

The shawarma arrives.

“Sorry,” says Bruce, laying it out on the table and shifting his glass aside. “You’ve been through a lot. I shouldn’t have told you all of that.” 

“They taught me at rehabilitation that it was important to share your feelings,” Thor points out, gesticulating with his food. He’s tucked in already, before Bruce has even finished taking everything out of the packaging. “I’m glad that you can share them with me. You said you haven’t told Steve?” 

“God, I don’t want to worry him.” Bruce rubs his temples. “He’s got enough on his plate, you know?” 

“Have you thought that he might be more worried not knowing what you’re going through? He isn’t stupid. I’m sure he knows that you’re not fine.” 

Bruce is quiet for a moment, both eating and thinking. Thor is right, of course. He usually is: he has a head on his shoulders, after all, and phases of brashness and pain don’t erase that; and if Bruce is honest with himself, he’s known this too, all this time. He knows that he isn’t  _ really  _ coping, and is avoiding getting too close to the burning fires of the emotional wreckage the battle had left behind.  _ Battles _ , he thinks. Nobody is forgetting the first anytime soon. Not the blood, the pain, the  _ dust _ on the floor that was once someone that Bruce loved.

Thor reaches across the table and touches his hand, and Bruce softens. He rubs his eyes. 

He wants to ask for a minute of peace, but also wants Thor to be here, to hold his hand like this. 

“Shit,” he says eventually, his voice a wobble that cracks. “I’m sorry.” 

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Thor soothes. “This isn’t easy; I would know, Bruce. I ran, too. Lots of baby steps.” 

“Not that I can take those,” Bruce says, swearing for a moment that the spirit of Tony had possessed him to say that, and he laughs, the sound cleaving through a little of his grief, lifting a little of the weight that had piled onto his shoulders when he talked about everywhere he’d gone wrong. He swallows the lump in his throat. “Thanks, Thor. I really missed you, you know, I’m not just saying that.” He lets Thor run a thumb over his palm. “Hey, Friday, play some Phoebe Bridgers and let Shuri know that I’ll be flying into Wakanda tomorrow. BCC that to T’Challa and Happy.” 

“Wakanda?” Thor inquires. “On what business?” 

“I need to fix this,” he says. “The whole - brains and brawn thing. I’m pretty sure I know how, but it can’t hurt to have some help. Burying the Hulk just… doesn’t get rid of that problem. It just makes a whole bunch of ethical ones.” 

“He’ll be angry,” Thor says softly; not to put Bruce off, and Bruce knows this, but he’s warning him, making sure that he remembers this. 

“He has a right.” 

Thor leans back and finishes a large mouthful of food which he chases up with some of Bruce’s citrus peach. He seems to like it; Bruce hopes he’s not drinking it out of obligation. “This sort of music isn’t going to make you much happier, you know.” 

Bruce grins and shakes his head. “Yeah, but it’s good.” 

“Hardly danceable to.” 

They finish dinner, and share a tub of Ben and Jerry’s from the freezer. Thor is right: the music isn’t exactly thrilling, but it’s somewhat come to encapsulate and ease Bruce through the moments of pain he feels. It’s late already, and Bruce has to excuse himself for bed, but not before he shows Thor to his room. 

“You decorated this for me?” Thor asks, running his fingers over the picture frames, a little awe creeping into his expression. Bruce blushes, if he even can considering that he’s green, and nods. “I appreciate it. Thank you. Good night, Bruce.” 

“Good night, Thor,” he says gently. 

  
  


Bruce wakes up in a better mood than he’s been in for weeks, and when he gets up, decides to make breakfast. He’s good at eggs, and makes plenty of them; Thor, like him, takes them scrambled and on toast, though Bruce is pretty sure Thor would have them any way that’s edible. Bruce has two cups of coffee, neither of which really hit because it takes three now before he even gets the slightest buzz, and chats to the other Avengers without even feeling as if it’s forced. He fills them all in on the story of Sakaar, with Thor’s assistance, and there’s something nice about the half-theatrical reproduction that makes Bruce feel a little normal again. 

This probably won’t be every day, or even the rest of the day, but it’s enough for him to just be feeling like this now. It’s the glimmer of hope that he needs.

Steve pulls him aside as breakfast finishes; Bruce isn’t sure if this is for some kind of pep talk or for the usual questioning of if he’s okay, and he wonders for a moment if he’d answer that question honestly, or still bluff his way out - but it’s probably about how he’s been, since Bucky probably didn’t exactly sugarcoat the truth of  _ Bruce has barely left the basement in the past two days _ . 

“You’re going to Wakanda?” Steve asks. Bruce nods. “Why? Did Thor say something to you?” 

“I need to see Shuri about something,” Bruce says, and feels an immediate guilt for not being completely open: if anyone deserves to know what’s going on, it’s Steve. He’s just not sure he wants to tell Steve that he thinks he’s an idiot who’s made more bad decisions recently than he knows what to do with. Steve gives him a look that suggests he’d rather know, and Bruce sighs. “She thinks she might be able to help me - reverse the transformation.” 

“You think that’s a good idea?” Steve asks. 

“Doing it in the first place was the bad idea,” Bruce says. 

“Alright,” says Steve. “Well, do whatever’s best for you. You know the drill.” He pauses, looking as if there’s something else he wants to say but he’s wrangling with himself, and Bruce internally prepares for whatever uncomfortable question could come next; but in the end, the question doesn’t come, and Steve shifts. “Keep me updated. I’ll watch out for Peter.” 

“Thanks,” Bruce says. “Take care of yourself too.” 

He spends the rest of the morning packing: it’s not exactly easy to carry potentially dangerous substances across the globe, but he’s getting used to procedure. His notes follow, and his tablet, and he packs a toothbrush and a few changes of clothes, just in case. He has no idea how long this will take: less than the original transformation, he’s sure, as he has a better understanding of the science now that he’s been one way, but even half of the original eighteen months is nine. That’s a long time, and a lot of people are counting on Bruce. Maybe he ought to wait. 

He goes to the kitchen to get a pitcher of water, only to find Thor there already. 

“Captain Rogers said you were being reclusive,” Thor says, quirking his eyebrows. “I suppose he was right.” 

“Not being reclusive,” says Bruce. “Just packing. Hey, listen, Thor, could you do me a favour? Could you - come to Wakanda with me? I know you’ll want to go back to New Asgard, but - I don’t know if I can do this alone.” He knows he won’t really be alone - there’s Shuri, of course, and she’s fun, and T’Challa, but Bruce doesn’t  _ really  _ know them. This all feels a little much for him to do on his own, and he swallows; Thor absolutely has the right to turn him down, having helped him so much on Sakaar with little back, but he  _ hopes _ . 

“Of course,” Thor says instantly. “I am sure Valkyrie is ruling fine in my stead.” 

“Oh, great,” Bruce says, and then realises what he’s heard, and spins round. “Wait, wait. Did you just agree?” 

Thor offers Bruce a confused smile. “Yes, I did. Why? Were you not expecting me to say yes?” 

“A little, yeah. I thought you’d go on a big speech about how you have to go back to the people of Asgard and sort everything out now that you’ve sorted yourself out, and triumphantly fly off or something.” 

Thor stands up with a little sigh, crossing the distance between them and placing a soft hand on Bruce’s arm. Bruce wonders if it’s a little ironic that the tables have turned so quickly from the last time they were in this position, or if that’s irony at all; he never was good at English lit. Most of his teachers told him it was because he didn’t seem to get to the heart of the themes, could only scratch the surface. “Bruce, you are my friend. You helped me when I was in need, so of course I’m going to help you. Asgard will do just fine without me. What made you think I wouldn’t help?” 

“Because you’re a King and a God with all these duties and responsibilities, and I’m just some guy who’s so depressed he decided to, I don’t know, turn himself  _ green _ .” Bruce isn’t sure whether he laughs or sobs; a mix of both, just quiet enough not to sound too pathetic. 

“Bruce,” Thor says. 

“Yeah, I know, we’re all equal.” 

“Do you know that? Or do you just say you do?” Thor squeezes Bruce’s arm and takes a step back. “I’m coming with you. It would be nice to see Wakanda not at war. And you at peace.” 

“Don’t get your hopes up about that last part.” 

Happy charters a plane for the afternoon, giving Thor enough time to pack and the two of them enough time to make their way through an alarming number of sandwiches. Bruce is pretty sure that most of the bread is his anyway, since nobody else seems to buy any, and mostly sticks to cheese or tuna as fillings. Thor doesn’t complain, but Bruce isn’t sure that Thor even eats slowly enough to taste. He makes his goodbyes to the team, when they see him; he doesn’t know when he’ll be back, of course, and plans fully to accompany Thor to New Asgard afterwards and make sure that nothing goes awry. He worries how the team will fare in his absence, but they seem to survive with him mostly camped in the basement anyway, and he reassures himself with the thought that  _ well, they have Captain America _ . If Steve can’t help, who can? 

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Rhodey tells him, just before he leaves, “or dangerous. Don’t try and be Stark. You’re not half as clever, or as lucky.” 

“Just make sure Steve doesn’t do anything stupid either,” Bruce grins. “Though I think Bucky has him covered on that. And if I’m not back in time, make sure Peter goes back to school next semester.”

“Don’t worry about them, dumbass,” Rhodey snorts. “Worry about yourself. And don’t you bring up those PhDs, Bruce, we all know you’re a dumbass where it counts.” 

Yeah, Bruce knows that too; knowing his way around physics and bio-organics hasn’t done anything for his woeful social skills, or his inability to communicate or work through his feelings. Science is just a distraction from it, actually.

Thor is asleep before the plane even takes off; he’s always been surprisingly casual about Earth transport, even more so than Bruce, who’s grown up with it and is no stranger to eye-wateringly long plane journeys. Then again, he supposes that someone who literally creates storms as he walks wouldn’t be afraid of turbulence; plus, flying in a plane must be far less intimidating than soaring across out in the open with only a hammer keeping him afloat. Bruce is a little neurotic about turbulence. Tony mocked him about it plenty, especially when Bruce would arrive everywhere exhausted because he hadn’t slept a wink. 

God, Bruce misses Tony. 

He puts his head in his hands and lets himself breathe his way through that feeling of loneliness as the plane takes off. Meditation has, at the very least, give him a way to talk himself down, soothe himself through the moments where his grief seems to rise to an insurmountable peak. 

He allows himself to hurt for a little bit, and then chugs some water, and watches the clouds outside the window. 

Thor wakes up about an hour before they arrive in Wakanda, stretching out and letting his hair down. Bruce teaches him how to play rummy, something that Thor takes a little bit of time to adjust to; he’s good at it, though, once he figures it out. Tony had taught him poker once before, but Thor can never remember what the suits are, and is so enthusiastic that he usually ends up skidding the cards across the table. Bruce has the patience for this, though, where Tony never did. Thor seems to enjoy the game, and tells Bruce a little about some of the games they played in Asgard, which all seem much more violent than rummy or solitaire. Bruce is glad they’ve only got cards. 

Wakanda is as beautiful as he remembers, though he really only remembers the fighting, and the falling on his face. It’s nice to see it in its true beauty, the glimmering peaks of the city and the woosh of the trains: it reminds him a little of Asgard, but Wakanda still stands proud, its architecture and style stunning in their unfamiliarity, their inventiveness, their brightness. Bruce is always in awe of vibranium and the ways the Wakandans use it, how they’ve built their society on it. He can feel his academic curiosity burning, his chest bubbling with questions that he suppresses for formality, bowing politely to T’Challa, who meets him almost straight off the plane. Even Thor bows, which Bruce hadn’t completely expected. 

T’Challa opens his mouth to say something in greeting, but is immediately drowned out by the bellowing of “Dr Bruce Banner!”; Bruce immediately recognises the voice as Shuri, and watches T’Challa stifle a laugh as she comes sprinting across the ground, beaming from ear to ear. Bruce wishes he was still that enthusiastic about anything, but the last time he’d been that excited was perhaps upon getting his first PhD and receiving mail addressed to Dr Banner for the first time. Every moment at university had felt a little like a surreal dream, and the reality of his doctorate had felt incredible to behold. He wishes, sometimes, that he could be that happy again; other times, he knows that it’s just a pipe dream. 

“You’re my favourite crusty white scientist!” Shuri enthuses, shaking his hand. “Though I guess you’re kind of green right now. Do green people have privilege?” 

“I’m going to say probably,” Bruce says gamely, and Shuri grins at him. 

He and Thor are officially greeted by T’Challa, but Shuri, as their host, gives them the tour. Bruce can tell that he’ll probably get lost in about two minutes, but Thor seems to nod along and take it all in. Bruce wonders if it reminds him of Asgard, and if it makes him miss it with a fiercer longing; he had missed the loss of it, but it still hit like a hammer to the chest. He could feel the ache of the people, palpable in the ship, and no-one hurt more than Thor. Shuri is distracting in her wit and humorous remarks about almost everything, but Bruce keeps half an eye on Thor, hoping that he’s just worrying too much. 

His worry completely fades when Shuri leads him into the lab, and it’s replaced by complete awe. Bruce has been in labs pretty much most of his life, and has seen just about everything Tony Stark’s ever made - and honestly, after Vision, he kind of thought he was immune to being surprised by science. 

But this? This is  _ amazing _ . If anyone can help him, Shuri can. 

“Wow,” he says slowly, sounding just as overwhelmed as he feels. “You could - you could get seven PhDs in your  _ sleep _ .” 

Shuri beams, turning to Thor. “I like this guy. Usually white boys feel intimidated.” 

Once she finishes the tour, Thor is escorted off to speak to T’Challa, and Bruce retrieves his notes; Shuri doesn’t even ask him to explain, just takes the notepad and leafs through it, seemingly untroubled by Bruce’s excuse for handwriting. It’s a scientist thing, he supposes: they all have terrible handwriting. He, at least, writes out chemical names in block capitals so he never accidentally blows himself up. 

“Dr Banner,” she says slowly. “This is all really good work, but - why did you do it? You knew about the ethical problems, right?” 

Bruce sighs; Shuri, he knows, won’t be quite as easy to brush off. Steve would never press, of course, but Shuri is of that generation that actually talk about and handle their feelings, and doesn’t have the sense of limits that the other Avengers do. “Sort of. I chose not to think about them. I just felt like I’d  _ failed _ , that this lack of control I had over the Hulk was the reason everything had gone wrong, and so if I had that control… well, I’m sure you figured that it didn’t really work. Being the Hulk is really impractical. I break a lot of stuff. And, like you said, the ethics… the other guy’s probably not happy about having, you know, been trapped in the back of my head for all this time.” 

“You know it wasn’t  _ your _ fault that Thanos snapped, right?” Shuri asks, leaning back in her chair. “There were a lot of people out there fighting. Why do you all think it’s anybody’s fault? It’s stupid. You all did what you could. But anyway, I’m pretty sure I can fix this. It should take a few days. And you’ll have to help.” 

“I was expecting that.” 

“Good, so no complaining. We start tomorrow.” 

There’s an official dinner hosted to welcome Thor and Bruce, which Bruce somehow manages to survive (Shuri’s reaction when she finds out that Bruce knows Carol Danvers helps; Bruce decides not to mention that he only sort of knows her, because she never really sticks around, and mostly they speak via the channels); he practically collapses on the bed in the room that he’s given, which has a splendid view of the city that he might appreciate more in the morning, and takes his tablet out to make sure nobody’s dying without him. 

Predictably, everything is fine. 

It makes him feel a bit useless. 

Everything really  _ is _ fine without him. Everyone is surviving. Nothing is on fire. No-one needs him. 

Bruce has never really been one to cry - not before the whole Thanos thing, anyway, and he held himself together pretty well for the redux, but he finds a few tears on his cheeks and wipes them away with the back of his sleeve.  _ No-one wants to see the Hulk cry _ , he thinks. Not even him. He opens his inbox. 

Steve has, of course, sent an email. It has all the hallmarks of Steve: it’s written eloquently, without a single typo, and looks more like a report; really, Bruce should just ask him to call. Everyone seems okay, Steve says, except Peter, who came and cried in Steve’s room for a little while; but that’s probably better than him crying on his own, Bruce notes in his reply. S.H.I.E.L.D. are prodding, apparently trying to scope when the Avengers will next be ready for service (and who they are anymore); Steve says he told them that the Avengers would make a statement when they were ready, which is exactly what Bruce would’ve done, though he adds that if Nick Fury ever comes calling then to answer. Not much else has happened, of course, though then again nothing ever does: if there is any action, it’ll occur out of nowhere, crescendo, and crash back to nothing soon enough. 

Bruce is starting to wonder if he  _ should  _ call Steve just so he doesn’t feel like he’s wallowing on his own when there’s a knock at the door. He’s not sure he’s in any state to answer it, but does so just the same to find Thor waiting patiently, sections of his hair neatly braided away; Bruce expects some of the Wakandans were enjoying his company earlier. He smiles when he sees Bruce, and a little bit of Bruce melts at just the softness of human contact that he doesn’t feel he has to force. 

“Hi,” he says, and steps aside, letting Thor in. “What’s up?” 

“I’m not ready to sleep yet,” he says. Bruce doesn’t know if this is because of nightmares, or if it’s because it’s still early. Thor  _ did _ nap on the plane, after all; and, really, he doesn’t want to think of even Thor being plagued by nightmares. There has to be somebody who’s immune, somebody who doesn’t look like they’re haunted at the breakfast table. “Shuri said earlier that you two would be finished by the end of the week.” 

Bruce chuckles. “Yeah, she’s a genius. You know it took me eighteen months to do it the first time?” 

“She keeps calling me coloniser. I don’t understand. I don’t believe that anybody lived in the area of New Asgard before we moved in.”

“Oh, no, it’s - well, historically, on Earth, white people have colonised various African countries. She’s making a joke, like when Tony calls you Point Break -  _ called _ .” 

Thor goes a little quiet at that and touches Bruce’s arm for a brief moment, then takes a seat on his bed and sinks into the memory foam. Bruce’s tablet is still open, his email to Steve still half-written and peppered with little notes of what he needs to say, who he needs to inquire about, but Thor isn’t invasive and doesn’t read it. Bruce still thinks he looks big on that bed, even though he knows that he’s bigger than Thor. “Did she do your hair?” he asks, gesturing to Thor’s braids. 

“Many of the women wanted to style my hair,” Thor says curiously. Honestly, even Bruce thinks that braiding Thor’s hair would probably be a calming endeavour, though he’s got no idea how to. “It felt very pleasant.” Maybe when he’s small, when he’s the right size for his soul again, he can learn how to braid hair and sit tucked into Thor, winding keratin round his fingers, listen to the rhythm of Thor’s breathing. Bruce finds it hard to focus on the small details now, the things that remind him that he’s alive and it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay right now. He’s not sure he could meditate anymore; it’s all a little much, his thoughts and his restlessness and the unbearable feeling of something being so  _ wrong _ . 

Thor seems to sense that Bruce isn’t quite grounded, and clears his throat. 

Bruce shifts. “What did you do with T’Challa today?”

“We talked about our responsibilities as kings,” Thor says. “He’s been gone for a long time. It was very profound, listening to him speak. And very humbling. I hope that I’ll be prepared when I return to New Asgard to rule properly and to make it up to my people.” 

“I think you’ve made it up to them already,” Bruce says, his voice soft. He wishes he could be as gentle and compassionate with himself as he is with other people. “You got yourself help. You worked to help defeat Thanos again, even though you were struggling. You’re thinking about how you can keep bettering yourself. I think your people would be proud.” 

Thor beckons Bruce to sit down. “You insist that you don’t,” he says, “but you have a way with words.” 

There’s a television in the bedroom, and when Thor had inquired about it, he’d been told that they could watch whatever they wanted on Netflix: and so they sit on the bed, Bruce’s email still unfinished and his tablet on the nightstand but no longer a worry in his mind, curled up with Thor as he is, and they watch  _ Hearts Beat Loud _ . Bruce isn’t sure it’s either of their type of film, but it’s exactly what they both need to watch: something fun, sweet, jauntily musical. Thor traces circles on Bruce’s large palms. Bruce doesn’t remember when it became like this, when they became so comfortable and familiar, but he’s glad for it. 

“Please stay,” he says to Thor when the film is over and when his fingers are hovering over the intricacies of his email. He knows that the bed, a double though it is, is barely enough to fit him, but he’s sick of himself, and he needs someone, and he needs - well, Thor.

“Of course,” says Thor, and stays. 

  
  


Shuri is so efficient in the lab that Bruce isn’t even sure she actually needs him there, or just wants him for the company and to bombard him with questions about gamma radiation and the other Avengers. She’s endlessly fascinated by Carol, the woman who single-handedly tore through a ship, but if Bruce is honest, he doesn’t know that much about her - just that she probably takes the cake as the strongest Avenger, that she’s usually somewhere in space dishing out intergalactic justice, and she’s close friends with Nick Fury. Bruce wonders what it’s like to be friends with Fury. Thor still likes to pronounce his name as ‘furry’ sometimes, and ignores the fact that Bruce cringes every time. 

(“It’s not pronounced  _ furry _ ,” Bruce said. 

“We don’t know anything about him,” Thor reminded him. “I bet it isn’t even his name, and I bet it’s pronounced ‘furry’, but he says it’s Fury just to make it seem cooler.”

“He has an eyepatch. Technically, he’s pretty cool already.” 

“Did I lose my coolness when I lost the eyepatch?” 

Bruce grinned, a little playfully. “A little, sure.”) 

He’s used to Tony playing music in the lab, but Shuri takes this to a next-level: she, like Bruce, has speakers installed just about everywhere, though hers are smaller and probably don’t require Hulk strength to carry about. While Bruce is the kind of guy to wear a lab coat (which he still insists is proper lab safety, and everybody else is just being  _ dangerous _ ), Shuri just seems to take everything casually, science just a part of her, as normal as breathing. 

He kind of loves it when she starts playing No Doubt’s  _ Just A Girl _ . 

“This song is older than you,” he says. “I remember this coming out.” 

“You know, I didn’t think you looked like the kind of man to listen to a lot of Gwen Stefani.” Shuri grins at him, folding her arms. “What else are you hiding?” 

“I used to work in a bar in the nineties to help pay off the student debt. We used to play this kind of stuff all the time. Have you heard  _ Connection _ by Elastica? That was a popular one. People used to start fights to that.” 

“That’s a terrible secret.” 

“Do I look like I’m hiding a lot of good secrets here?” 

“Not really, I guess.” 

Shuri does indeed follow up on his suggestion to listen to  _ Connection _ , and she flops down on a chair for a moment, stretching out her arms. The notes she’s written are so much neater, in a legible hand: she, too, understands the vital importance of being able to actually decipher the correct chemicals and amounts. She doesn’t, however, understand lab safety, and starts eating some popcorn stashed under a desk. Bruce decides not to comment on how unhygienic that is, since technically, he’s a guest, and technically, she’s about thirty years younger than him and smarter than him already. 

“What’s the deal with you and Thor?” she asks, offering him a kernel; Bruce shakes his head. “Are you guys going out?” 

Bruce considers the question.

“I mean, there’s no reason for him to be here, is there? And if you were going to bring an Avenger along for emotional support, it wouldn’t be him, would it?”

“Sure it would,” Bruce shrugs. “Both of us got stranded on an alien planet together once; I had been there for about two years, as the Hulk, and he crash landed and got us both out of there. He talked me down from two years of being the Hulk. I trust him.” 

“But are you going out?” 

“Almost.” 

“That is  _ so _ not an answer!” 

“It’s totally an answer.” 

“Have you two, like, kissed or not?” 

Bruce thinks for a moment about the Battle of Wakanda, stepping out of the suit to meet Thor, to fling his arms around his friend in some state of paralytic grief; there was so much to cry over in that moment, and yet neither of them could quite muster tears, caught in the pain. They had stood for what felt like forever, forehead to forehead, Bruce’s hand’s on Thor’s shoulders and Thor’s hands at the side of his neck, his touch soft but his fingers calloused, rough. It had been more intimate than a kiss, in that moment, both of them clinging on to each other as the reality of disaster struck, as half the world crumbled. 

“Come back,” Bruce had whispered when Thor had stepped back, Stormbreaker in his hand, ready to take flight. 

“We haven’t kissed, whatever that means to you kids,” he says to Shuri. “I don’t know where your marker of ‘going out’ is, but he came with me here even though he didn’t need to and I’m pretty sure would rather be in New Asgard right about now, and he makes sure I’m fine, and he squeezed himself into bed with me yesterday just because I asked, even though I probably crushed him at some point while I was sleeping. I like him, sure, but don’t ask me if we’re going out, because my history of romance is terrible and mostly shows that I don’t know anything about it.” 

Shuri is beaming at him when he looks over, and he shakes his head and laughs as she shouts “that’s so fucking cute!”

  
  


The week is something that Bruce hadn’t expected: pleasant. It isn’t that he  _ isn’t _ still pestered with negativity, and reminders that Tony is dead and nothing will ever be the same again, but something about it feels therapeutic, as if he can truly start to believe he’s walking on stable ground again. Shuri keeps him busy in the lab - if not with work, then with conversation: they discover a shared love of Mitski, and Bruce tells her about his life before all of this - the bars, the PhDs, the endless nights sitting up studying; he tells her more about Sakaar, too, every little detail. She likes hearing about Valkyrie, which he’d expected, and though Bruce doesn’t know too much of what happened when he was the Hulk, he’s been filled in enough to tell her that, too. In return, she tells him about her life as a princess, about her brother, about pop culture. She teaches him some text speak, about memes, shows him Vine compilations when they’re in down time. Bruce hadn’t been entirely sure what to expect, but he laughs at them, too: he particularly likes the one with the croissant, and feels like he probably shouldn’t be laughing at something so stupid, but it’s nice. It’s nice just to be laughing, and not worrying, and doing the kind of science that he loves that had gotten him so far in the first place.

“Are you sure you’re definitely ready for this?” Shuri asks the day before. Bruce smiles gently at her.

“I’ve been ready for this for a long time,” he says.

He and Thor have been sleeping in each other’s rooms the whole week, never quite content to be on their own: Thor’s bedroom doesn’t have quite the same expansive view as Bruce’s, but it’s a different view, and he likes it, too. It’s also easier to leave the palace from Thor’s room, and he and Bruce spend a little time together out in the city: they share a few coffees and walk around and take in the sight of the sprawling city, the effortless technology. Mostly, Bruce likes to get coffee and a pastry in the morning and bring them back up so that he can sit with Thor. They don’t have to talk, and often say nothing particularly important, but it’s just nice. Thor has been going easy on Bruce, lately, he knows. Bruce is sure that Thor can sense his anxiety, the gathering of his nerves.

Bruce switches from emailing Steve to calling him every evening; everything is still fine. Cassie Lang’s birthday is coming up, and Peter has arranged for everybody to sign a card for her, so Bruce writes a message on his tablet that Steve will print out and stick on the card. Bruce is sure that Tony would know an easier way to do this - perhaps just have all of them sign the card digitally, and print it out then, but Steve isn’t exactly an expert and Bruce doesn’t sign many birthday cards, so they keep it that way. Besides, Bruce thinks it might have a little more authenticity that way: the scissor marks from Captain America, the knowledge that someone had sit down to put the card together, that it wasn’t just a passing thought. He takes a while deciding what to write, but settles on wishing her a happy birthday and reminding her that her dad had helped saved the world, and so by extension, she definitely has some world-saving abilities herself.

He still wonders if he’s useless, if he’s needed at all by any of the others, but there’s something nice about being able to keep up with them. According to Steve, more than a few ask after him, and of course ask after Thor: Bucky wants to know if Bruce is eating lunch away from the lab yet, and Peter wants to ask Bruce’s opinion on what classes he should take next year, and Sam wants to know if he’s broken any door frames yet. They’re not all important questions, but they are questions, and Bruce knows that Steve wouldn’t make them up.

He’s glad for them; all of them.

People can survive without him, true; but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about him. He tells himself that the morning of the reversal, looking at his green skin in the bathroom mirror. Thor is waiting on the bed when he comes back into the room, and hands Bruce a set of small clothes: clothes that are his normal size, he realises with a jolt.

He hadn’t thought to pack any himself, but Thor had. 

“If anything goes wrong,” Bruce starts.

“If anything goes wrong,” Thor interrupts, “I’m here. And so is Shuri, whose opinion I know you hold in very high esteem.” 

“She’s a good scientist. Very good,” Bruce says, and swallows, throwing an arm around Thor and trying not to crush too hard into his chest. His clothes will probably be rumpled now, too, but if Thor hadn’t brought them he’d probably be wading around in cast-offs, and he’s not even sure he could ever verbalise how much this means to him. That Thor had thought of this, had made sure that he was going to be comfortable, to reassure him. “Thanks, Thor.” 

Thor takes his hand - not the good one, the scarred arm, with its stained nerve endings - and takes it to his mouth, and kisses it. 

  
  


_ Bruce hadn’t cried at the funeral.  _

_ He had waited, held it in until they were back at the Tower, found a space in what was meant to be his room, and sobbed. It wasn’t really his room yet: it was just a space, with four walls and a king-size mattress, because they didn’t have the time or the energy to actually bring real furniture in, but it was his space, at least. A place to be on his own.  _

_ He sat down in the corner, put his hands to his face, and cried.  _

_ All that he could do for them, and it wasn’t enough. _

_ He hadn’t heard Thor enter, but equally wasn’t surprised by the hand on his shoulder.  _

  
  


_ “I thought he was going to leave,” said Bucky. Bruce was swirling the contents of his cuba libre, and he paused for a moment to look up. Bucky was about the last person he’d expect to have a heart-to-heart with, but Sam had tapped out half an hour ago, and it was just the two of them and  _ Moonrise Kingdom _ on the television now.  _

_ “Steve?” Bruce asked, taking a sip. He’s not used to doubles and the alcohol burns the back of his throat. He’s had just about enough of these to get buzzed, which is a lot.  _

_ “Yeah,” Bucky said. “He told me he wasn’t coming back. That he was going to go and stay with Peggy.”  _

_ Bruce rubbed his forehead. “Did he - did he listen at all when we were explaining time travel? I know it’s a bit of a brain twister, but…”  _

_ “He takes all the stupid with him,” Bucky said dryly. “But then he came back, and - Jesus, I thought I was dreaming. Or that maybe he hadn’t left at all, and I was still waiting. When I saw him, it was like…” He waved a hand, and then snorted, and finished his drink in one go. “Okay, I’m drunk.”  _

_ “Well, that’s pretty obvious,” Bruce snorted.  _

_ “Shut up,” Bucky laughed. “But when I saw him, it felt like…” He trailed off, and shook his head, and said “I’m going to bed again”, but Bruce had the distinct feeling that yeah, he did sort of know that feeling, and maybe he’d felt it himself when he’d seen that lightning arc across the field in Wakanda.  _

  
  


Bruce doesn’t remember any of the process, just that he wakes up to the sound of Thor telling him that the sun’s going down, and he grabs Thor’s arm, demanding to know if the Other Guy came out, if everyone in the lab is safe, if he destroyed anything. 

Then Shuri tells him she hit him in the neck with a tranquiliser, and Bruce’s neck does indeed hurt, and he takes her word for it. 

He changes out of sight of her into his normal clothes: Thor had packed a sweater, some jeans, and a pair of very battered Converse that have definitely seen better decades but that Bruce will determinedly wear until the soles can’t be fixed on with superglue anymore. He’s quite comfortable, actually, and wonders where Thor even  _ got _ these. 

“I really didn’t do anything too bad, did I?” he asks, smoothing down his jeans. Thor shakes his head.

“She got you pretty fast,” he says with a laugh. He reaches out and touches Bruce’s arm, and he has to admit that it’s a little strange being the shorter of the two again, and his arm being small enough to touch, but it’s nicer. Nothing about being Hulk-size was right. He doesn’t even know why he did it: he wishes he did, he wishes he understood, but everything had felt like it was crashing down on his head, and it was  _ something _ . “Do you feel alright?” 

“I feel a bit weird, but I’m okay. Can we go get a croissant later?” 

“Yes, of course.” Thor slides his hand down Bruce’s arm, and then takes his hand. “Does it feel better?” 

Bruce is still for a moment, and then nods. “Yeah. Yeah, it does.” 

Shuri laughs at him when she sees him round the corner. “You’re so small!” 

“Hey, I’m taller than you,” he says good-naturedly, offering out a hand to her. “I just wanted to say thanks, Shuri. For all of this, and for having us. It’s been really hard since we lost Tony, so I really appreciate this, and if by any chance you might ever need any of us, just send the word. Which I know is unlikely, since you guys clearly have your stuff together, but the only other thing I have to offer is half a bar of chocolate, so.” 

“I am more than happy to learn about gamma radiation and your history of terrible jobs,” Shuri replies, shaking his hand with a grin. “But the same to you. We’re always here to sort your shit out. And I swear I’ll send you guys the new suits soon.”

Bruce is slow at adjusting back to his normal body, but Thor is tempered and patient with him, even though Bruce gets the sense that there are moments in which he’d rather carry Bruce down the stairs than watch him go down slowly, trying to recalibrate. They get that croissant from the café opposite the palace and Bruce almost drops his mug of hot chocolate; he’s so used to holding it carefully, so that he didn’t smash it, that he forgets he has to keep a tight hold now. It’s odd, but at the same time exhilarating: he doesn’t have to duck through doorways, type with the very tips of his fingers, hold mugs like precious china. He feels less like he’s forcing his smiles now, and a little more like he means them. Sure, the adrenaline joyride will be over soon, but Bruce is so unused to this sense of contentedness that he takes it. 

“You look happy,” Thor says as they head back to the palace. 

“Yeah,” says Bruce, sticking his hands in his pockets; God, he missed pockets. Jeans just weren’t really an option at Hulk size. “This just feels so much better. The whole Hulk thing was definitely a bit of a  _ faux pas _ , I just wanted to feel like I could do better, and…” 

“You did worse?”

“I didn’t want to admit it, but really, Hulk-size me wasn’t going to be doing much epic world-saving. I can’t even throw a punch, you know? I’m a  _ scientist _ , I do the  _ thinking _ .” 

“I remember. You said your PhDs made you powerful.” 

“Maybe that was a bit wrong.” 

“No,” Thor says, a little absently, as if he’s thought about this before, the words coming familiarly. “You just need to figure out how to use them.” 

“You can’t really hurt anybody with a PhD.” 

“Tell that to Jane.” 

“Jane?” 

“Oh yes, my ex. She ran me over with her car twice. It was a rather abrupt introduction to Earth.” 

Bruce laughs, and he’s not totally sure if it’s from the idea of the mighty God of Thunder being backed into or just from the absurdity of it all, but there’s something in the story that just sets him into hysterics. Thor quirks his eyebrows, and runs a thumb across Bruce’s cheek before leaning in to kiss him; even that barely stifles his laughter, his smile strong against Thor’s mouth, which mirrors him absently. He kind of can’t believe that his first kiss with Thor is a soft one in the middle of a corridor in Wakanda, but at the same time, there’s something that just feels exactly  _ right  _ about that, as if everything had just been building to this unassuming moment. 

“Wait, weren’t you dating Jane Foster?” Bruce asks as he pulls back. “ _ Jane Foster  _ hit you with her car, twice? Oh my God.” 

“You know her?” Thor asks. 

“Yeah, I met her at a conference where she was presenting her work on the Convergence. It was all really impressive stuff. I can’t believe she ran you over. That’s kind of hilarious.” 

They tap out of the official dinner that night, and instead opt for sharing a takeaway; Bruce’s appetite is waxing and waning, and he can only half-remember how much food a normal person eats, so everything that he doesn’t have, Thor does. They watch a film as they eat, a slightly obscure New Zealand drama called  _ Boy _ , and Thor talks a little about how he’d lived in Australia for a while. He describes it all to Bruce: the beautiful beaches, going surfing in the morning, the Melbourne skyline. He’s animated when he talks about it, dramatically recounting his adventures or seeming lack thereof, and he somehow lapses into the story of how he ended up in Sakaar. Bruce has never heard this before, these details, and as Thor goes on, they start touching; brushes of each other’s hands turns into fingers intertwined, thumbs brushing over knuckles. Bruce doesn’t even notice that they’re this close until Thor kisses him and eases his sweater up and over his shoulders. 

“Yes?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Bruce answers, flushing. 

Thor is careful with him, takes his time and pores over each part of Bruce: he kisses along the scarred flesh of his arm, and the paths of hair on his chest, and the lines of his collarbone. He explores all the avenues that make up Bruce, and takes his time in a way that Bruce didn’t even know was possible for a God who’s so classically impatient. 

He also didn’t know it was possible for anyone to love him this much. 

“Thor,” he says, pausing him for a moment. “When did you realise that you - you know,  _ liked _ me?” 

Thor hums, mulling it over for a second, and then chuckles to himself. “When I questioned if you really  _ were _ powerful and useful, and you asked me how many PhDs the Hulk had,” he says. “What about you? When did you figure it out?” 

“Wakanda,” says Bruce, reaching up to touch Thor’s cheek, his fingers grazing through his partner’s beard. “When I saw you in the sky, and I realised you were alive, and you were… is it cliché to say  _ electric _ ?” He leans up to kiss him, bumping their foreheads together. “You look amazing like that. With all the lightning. And you know, the second time, when you had that little beard plait - that was cute. I was so proud of you. Everything you’d been through, and you were still standing there at the front.” 

“What about you?” Thor asks. “You’ve always been there.” 

Bruce reddens. “It wasn’t really like I could’ve done anything.”

“But you were there, just the same, at the front. That’s bravery.” 

Bruce has the quite sudden urge to cry; people don’t usually say things like that to him, and it touches his heart to think that Thor is here, that he’s been watching, proud, all this time. Most people aren’t proud of Bruce anymore. He brought everyone back, sure, but most people don’t remember that, or know it: it’s overshadowed, and quite rightly so, he thinks, by Tony. He’s been feeling like a failure for years now, but Thor… 

Thor doesn’t think that. He never would. 

“We’re going to get through this, aren’t we?” Bruce asks suddenly, and for the first time, he thinks he actually believes it. 

“We always were,” says Thor, and takes Bruce’s hand. 

  
  


Bruce swears he heard a thunderclap earlier.

He takes Steve’s phone call outside, talks as he wanders through the corridor, keeping his voice low and hoping he isn’t disturbing. He’s searching for a balcony, really, but only knows the way between his rooms, the lab, the dining room, and the kitchen. Steve gives him the usual update: Sam and Bucky are idiots, he took Peter out for lunch earlier, Clint and his family visited. His voice is unusually soft, and Bruce wonders what’s up, until he admits that some guys had tried to blow the Tower up earlier, and the ensuing battle had been messy. Bruce groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“Shit. I should’ve been there.” 

“No, you shouldn’t,” Steve insists. “Whatever you and Thor are doing out there is more important than this. We can deal with this; you know that. You two are taking care of yourselves, and that matters. I know you feel responsible for taking care of everyone, Bruce, and I’m glad that you’re looking out for us, but we can hold the fort. Worry about yourself first.” 

“Hey, Cap, have you ever considered becoming a motivational speaker?” 

Steve laughs. “I bet it’d pay the bills. How’d the reverse transformation go? You sound good.” 

“It feels better,” Bruce says. “Kinda like a weight off my shoulders, but I’m trying not to be too happy about it, because I know just because I’ve done this, it doesn’t mean that any of this is over.”

“You’re allowed a break, you know. To be happy.” 

“I don’t want to get my hopes up.” 

“Why not?” 

“So I’m ready for the next low.” 

“You’re never going to be really happy if you’re always waiting for when you’re going to crash,” Steve says, gently. Bruce knows he’s right, but - at the same time, it’s hard to hear. He’s scared of the lows, feels like they’re constantly inevitable, the moment when he crashes back down to his depressed reality. But maybe… 

God, he should listen to Steve. His life would be so much better if he listened to Steve.

“Oh, hey, I need to talk to you about Thor,” he says. “I, uh. I think we’re going out, and you should probably tell Happy before this ends up leaking to the press or something.” 

“You  _ think _ you’re going out?” Steve asks, sounding amused. Bruce clicks his tongue. “You’re not sure?” 

“Listen, Steve, you may have men and women falling at your feet, but I don’t, alright? I’m no good at this sort of stuff, if you couldn’t already tell. I have no idea what I’m doing. You don’t get PhDs in social interaction.” He makes a noise somewhere between a sigh and a laugh, and realises he’s just walked past a balcony; it’s open, thankfully, and he steps out into the warm night air. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get over this view. He’s travelled plenty, but never really for sightseeing, never for appreciating the views and the stars twinkling above him that he and Thor could both name. “I never really know when I love someone as a friend compared to a partner, or when someone isn’t good for me. But I guess, uh…” He runs a hand across the rail. “I love him. I know that’s a lot to say, but I do.” 

“If that’s how you feel, that’s how you feel,” Steve says. “I’ll tell Happy. And, hey. God of Thunder as a boyfriend is a good catch. How’s he doing? Still alright?” 

“Yeah. He’s doing good. He’s been talking to T’Challa a lot about how to be a good king. He’s determined, and he’s working really hard, and I’m pretty proud of him. It can’t be easy to bounce back after that.” 

“You’re both doing great,” says Steve. “This is what we should’ve been doing before: making sure that we were all holding up.” Bruce can hear him shift. “I’m sorry about those five years. About not reaching out.” 

“We all are,” says Bruce. 

He hangs up a little later, and rests his elbows on the railing, watching the city as its people come and go, living their own vivid lives just beneath him. He can even hear the swell of music, and as he tunes in on it, realises that it’s coming from upstairs: from the lab. It’s Mitski, and Bruce knows the song, too: it’s the headstrong chords of  _ Your Best American Girl _ . He knows that Shuri should probably be in bed and not up and doing whatever she’s doing, but he can hardly fault her: it’s the flaw of the best scientists to be unable to sleep when an idea is buzzing through their minds. He grins. 

He isn’t surprised when Thor appears behind him, but is when Thor touches his lips to Bruce’s temple. 

“Hey,” Bruce says, leaning into Thor’s warmth, “can I braid your hair?”

  
  


It’s raining when they arrive in New Asgard; it started somewhere across the sea and has been drizzling the rest of the way, and it’s a positive downpour by the time they drive into the town, having landed miles away. Bruce had suspected that it was Thor from the moment the clouds rolled in, but he knows it when they walk; not a single drop touches either of them, a circle carved around them through the dampness. Thor arcs a little bit of lightning across the sky when they arrive, just for good measure, and Bruce loves the mischievous look on his face when he does it. 

Bruce knows that this must be a place full of pain for Thor, and yet he looks completely at ease among his people, in this place that he took and called home. 

“Did you miss it?” Bruce asks, even though he knows it’s a stupid question. 

“Dearly,” says Thor. 

People’s eyes follow him as he walks, the king of this community: he makes for a cottage that Bruce knows definitely isn’t his, one that isn’t exactly central but isn’t too far out either. There’s a fenced garden to it, though it isn’t tended to and is instead just joyfully growing the way that it wants to, and Thor doesn’t bother knocking on the door, instead just entering. Bruce wonders if they even have locks here, if they’d actually need them. 

The house isn’t exactly much tidier than Thor’s had been, but Bruce supposes that cleaning up isn’t the top priority for the ruler of Asgard; he realises it’s her house quickly, if not from the decoration, then from the sound of her voice welcoming Thor home and demanding to know if he’s sober this time, because if he’s not, he isn’t ruling anybody just yet. 

“He’s sober,” Bruce says, taking a step into the living room and smiling at her. God, he likes Valkyrie; he knows her name isn’t that, that she’s actually Brunnhilde, but he can’t quite stop himself. Every time he sees her he’s struck by her; she has this aura, he thinks. “I promise.” 

She looks at him, clearly resisting the urge to make a jab about his being small again, and then back to Thor. “Are you ready to be King?” she asks, putting her hands on her hips. “I haven’t spent months getting this place’s shit together for you to mess it up, you know.” 

“I will do my best, as the son of Odin,” Thor promises her. 

“Alright,” she says, still sounding a little cautious. “I’ll call a meeting. Everyone who’s on land should be in the square in about half an hour, and whatever you say, just don’t fuck it up. They’ve been waiting.” She nods at Bruce in a gesture he’s not totally sure he understands and leaves the house, presumably to call people or to signal; Bruce isn’t entirely sure how it’ll be done until he hears the clear note of a horn from above him. He turns to Thor to say something, and is a little surprised to find the mighty Allfather with a look of absolute fear on his face, the crippling fear of worry, the reminder of failure. 

“Hey,” says Bruce, “Thor. Just breathe. You’re a great king, okay?” 

“I’m sure that my people deserve better,” Thor muses, “but I’m going to try. That’s what they taught me in rehab: to take the first step is the most important of all.” 

“That sounds wise.” 

Thor takes such a deep breath that for a moment the rain seems to intensify and lash the roof, but on the exhale, it smooths out into a drizzle. Bruce doesn’t know how much of Thor’s inclement weather abilities are conscious, but even if they are, and he’s breathing with the fall of the rain, it doesn’t really matter. He touches their foreheads together. 

“Please stay with me, Bruce Banner,” Thor says, his voice almost a whisper. 

“I’ll stay as long as you need,” Bruce says, and takes his hand. “We’re gonna get through this.”

Thor’s eyes glance up to meet Bruce’s, and in that moment his worry slides away, and he smiles, and it feels like hope.


End file.
